A Twist of Fate
by Pale Moon Swamp
Summary: The encounter that changed both men's lives. - He'd spent the night burying the dead and was alone, exhausted and feeling empty. His life, he knew, was a dead-end. Yet in fact he was sitting on a fork in the road right now.


He stirred the slightest bit. From the corner of his eyes he saw that a good distance away a man had started heading his way. Well, that was ok, it didn't matter.  
Miss Kasumi, miss Akane, miss Sakura… His stomach burned. They were dead. Gone. Some man had come and killed the attackers – he didn't even know why they had attacked. Not that it mattered anymore. And he couldn't remember the man's face. He wasn't even sure he had actually looked at him. He guessed that didn't matter anymore either.  
The young women had been so kind. But they had ended up protecting him and now they lay buried. He should've been the one neath the dirt. Everyone from the caravan was dead. Everyone from the bandit group was dead too. Their blood was mixed, their bodies lay mingled. In the end it was all the same, bandits and slavers and slaves. In the end blood was blood and lifeless bodies were lifeless bodies; no more than faint echoes of their lives. At least they were resting now.  
He tried to reconstruct the events of the previous evening, but sunk into a vacuum instead.

A voice came out of the air. "It wasn't your time yet, boy." The owner of the voice took a last step to stand next to him, gazing onto the scene before them. After a moment he sighed and said: "Sorry about this, kid."  
The boy kept silent for a while. Then, in a tone as torn as the terrain, he softly spoke: "I don't think you were among the ones responsible, but did you do it then?"  
"No." The man took a long moment to study the boy's face. The child hardly took notice of it.  
"You have a name?"  
He nodded.  
"Aah."

Neither spoke and it seemed many moments passed while the rest of the world moved onward, leaving them locked in time. Behind them in the silence the sun was climbing a little higher in the sky, taking off the sharpest edges of the chill that seemed to cling to the air.  
"Do you not want to tell me?"  
At that the boy briefly turned his head to take in the body of the figure next to him. The man was huge. Towering and broad and standing with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He recognized the man. "It's Shinta. …You were here last night."  
"Yes."  
"Then you're not here to kill me..."  
"No," was the answer this time. "Don't be foolish." The boy kept staring in front of him.  
The mountain-like man spoke again, the timbre of his voice descending onto the boy next to him, forcing him out of his thoughts. "Shinta. Who are the people laying here?"  
"My slavers and the other slaves. The attackers too."  
"You dug all of these graves for slaves, slavers, and bandits alike?" The boy nodded slowly and tried to explain: "All of them fought to live, but all of them lost their lives. They are only bodies now, there is no difference. So I gave them graves."  
The question unintentionally fell from the man's lips: "How?"  
Absently the boy's eyes drifted to the three stones, standing out from the other graves that he'd marked by makeshift crosses. Miss Kasumi, miss Akane, miss Sakura... He felt the man's eyes follow his gaze. The man's presence felt strong and oddly reassuring, like the promise of an answer, even when he didn't think he had a question. It made it hard to turn his attention away from the man, who really was very much like a mountain. His gaze returned to his lap, settling on his hands, they were destroyed.  
"I just did," he mumbled and tilted his head back to glance up at the man-mountain's face, avoiding his eyes. "I owed it to them."  
The man gave a nod. "They shielded you." The boy said nothing to that. "That's a good thing, " his tone held a softness to it that stood in stark contrast with the surroundings. The boy found it difficult to place.

"It was my duty to protect them. I failed." He felt a big hand land on one of his shoulders. He carefully remained as still as he had, though it felt– nice. He noticed the warmth of the man's hand through his clothes. It felt odd to him, like he himself was very far away. He wasn't sure, but somehow the hand seemed to be calling him back.  
"Kenshin." The man-mountain's sudden voice broke him out of his thoughts. This time he looked up into the man's eyes, a hint of confusion in his face.  
"Shinta, I will call you Kenshin." That didn't make sense. "Shinta is no name for a swordsman," the man said in a voice like that was something plain as day. "Come on," he continued, leaving no time for the boy to drift away again. "Let's go. My name is Hiko, you can come with me. I'll teach you all I know. "

The man– mister Hiko turned around and started walking. Too boggled to move, Kenshin just gaped at him. The man-mountain must have known, 'cause without looking back he called out. "Well, hurry!"


End file.
